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EverQuest II Chaos Descending Expansion Announced

Daybreak started off being a bit coy by announcing on Thursday that pre-expansion events had started and calling on adventurers to fight an onslaught of raging elementals without ever mentioning the actual expansion.

However, they could only stay mum for a day it seems, as yesterday they followed up with a short Producer’s Letter announcing the upcoming expansion Chaos Descending.

Featuring E’ci

Details about the expansion are pretty scarce. We know the name, that it will carry on from last year’s Planes of Prophecy expansion in exploring the planar realms of Norrath, that you’ll encounter E’ci the Wintery guardian (because half of the names in original EverQuest were just something spelled backwards), and that it will launch in November.

Beyond that… well… I suppose we can guess about zones and raids and such. There will certainly be three flavors of the expansion, normal, collector’s, and premium, if the past is any guide. But we do not know if they will raise the level cap or not. There is some mystery in that I guess.

the Producer’s Letter has a few other items to follow on the expansion announcement.

Last year’s Planes of Prophecy expansion is currently half price and will remain so until October 1, 2018 if you want to catch up.

The Days of Summer event is still going, having a good four weeks left to run, which will put it into autumn for all practical definitions of the season in the northern hemisphere.

Finally, there will be a “gear up, level up” event starting on September 24th to help you get ready for the upcoming expansion.

Not to be down on this, but it sounds like the usual expansion plans complete with the unpredictable announcement cycle. I expect we should be hearing something soon for EverQuest as well. Still, any game still getting expansions after fourteen years (or nineteen in the case of EQ) can’t be doing that bad.

We’ll see if the rumors from May end up coming true. A couple have already (Just Survive is down and PlanetSide 2 is getting a new map) but I haven’t seen anything indicating that these are the last expansions for the current Norrath franchise yet.

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2 thoughts on “EverQuest II Chaos Descending Expansion Announced”

I’ve thought for a few years now that if DBG wanted to maximize their return from EQ and EQ2 all they really need to do is cut and paste a “more of the same” expansion for both games every twelve months. There can’t be many more traditional, change-fearing playerbases left in gaming but the upside of all that conservatism is that they’ll keep paying over and over for the same thing with the names changed. It’s when some bright spark tries to give them something they don’t recognize that it all goes to pot.

It’s hard to be sure but my impression is that last year’s expansion was fairly well received by EQ2 standards. The couple before that were a rough ride in comparison. The mood in game all year has been relatively benign. I’m quite puzzled about Feldon’s outrage building to the point where he finally quit – it seemed to me things had improved but then I have no knowledge of the upper end of the game, which is where al his concerns seemed to be rooted.

I do hope this isn’t the final expansion because I’ve found them to be reliable entertainment for years – well, since launch, really. It would seem odd to stop producing them if they still make money but there is the issue of resources to consider. I’m expecting this year’s expansion to look and feel noticeably thinner even than last year’s, which was very slimline compared to even the Shattered Seas era, let alone something like Faydwer or kunark. I still thought it was good value for money at the $40 price point though. The people who really complain and threaten to quit every year are always the ones who claim to be outraged by the contents of the expensive packs – and those do generally look like an appalling waste of money to me. But then, they always did and stil do for every MMO.